The gentlemen of the BCCI have finally diagnosed what went wrong during India’s recent tour of England. It wasn’t bad captaincy, worse fielding or a batting side unable to keep its nerve when faced with even half-decent bowling. It was the wives and girlfriends, WAGs in the sporting lexicon, who were a “big distraction” for their partners, wanting to “explore the city” and, no doubt, go shopping every time the men in blue were trying to hit the nets or the gym. Changing coaches will not be enough, the BCCI seems to feel, girlfriends will have to be banned and wives will have limited time with their husbands during tours.
Not only has the BCCI run out of excuses for the team’s miserable performance, it seems to have happily bought into the popular lore about WAGs. Lore that is almost always sexist and sometimes flagrantly offensive. For instance, no football tournament is complete without ticking off a checklist of WAGs — which ones were there, what they wore, where they were spotted. WAGs leaning out of the stands to cheer on their partners, WAGs looking stony when the game is not going well, WAGs displaying the required raptures when the heroes score. In the mythology of sport, they are either trophies or distractions — two sides of the same coin, really.
The BCCI also seems to have ignored the evidence from other teams, which would suggest that “distractions” are not directly correlated to the number of wins. At the just-concluded FIFA World Cup, for instance, Russia, which did not allow WAGs to travel with the team, was eliminated in the first round. Germany, which only banned sex the night before a game, won the tournament. Besides, has it occurred to the BCCI that its players are adult men responsible for their own decisions? And that old canard about hens and husbands is just that — a (sexist) canard?
